“Our position is that national makes should have significant market share, about 60%,” he told the press at today’s official launch of the Akashi Kikai plant in Sendayan Tech Valley, near Seremban. “It will be good for the whole industry, we should complement each other rather than compete.”

While most dream of the future, Jonathan Tan dreams of the past, although he's never been there. Fantasises much too often about cruising down Treacher Road (Jalan Sultan Ismail) in a Triumph Stag that actually works, and hopes this stint here will snap him back to present reality.

Who started the fight in first place? Producing an A-segment car was apart of the PROTON transformation plan to regain it’s position as No.1 market holder in Malaysia before penetrating the global market. DRB management will prove to Malaysian and hatred kiasu that PROTON BOLEH!

It is solely because of Proton and Perodua that 30 million people in Malaysia suffer. Everybody’s biggest payment per month is their cars as we are paying overpriced cars. Don’t know why Malaysians are excited about low quality Perodua and Proton when 30 years, Proton and later Perodua rogol all of us.

You see, in the 80s or even in the early 90s, you can get a brand new Nissan 130Y or a Toyota Corolla for RM20,000. Now, the same car is RM139,000.

In truth, the past 30 years, car prices have come down a lot globally and have NOT gone up due to inflation. It has come down due to economies of scale achieved by car companies. This is proven by the fact that you can get a brand new purely Japan made top spec 10 airbag Toyota Camry 2.5 in the US for US$22,000. That is about RM60,000. The normal B segment car like the Almera is sold in the US for US$9,999. (RM30,000). Mind you, this is after Toyota and Nissan of the US has made their margin and profits and the US government has collected taxes and duties from Nissan and Toyota. The direct from factory prices is far cheaper. UMW will get the above 2.5 Camry for US$15,000 from their principal in Japan. As our Camry is CKD, the price is even lower than that.

Our cars compared to global cars are completely stripped down. Even basic car in the US got about 20 safety features that the same car in Malaysia does not have. Purposely taken out to cut cost even further and untung more profit.

So, in actual fact, most Malaysians can enjoy cheap and reasonable cars but because of Proton and Perodua, all the other car prices have been raised up tremendously to protect Proton. Malaysians have already suffered so much. For 30 years, 30 million people suffer so much. We struggle paying for our high car prices all because of one man’s dream of benefiting his friends and relatives and forcing the dying Proton to live with billions of our LHDN money, money which could be used to build more schools and hospitals.

If we did not have Proton sucking money from LHDN, each state can have an addition 10 fully fledged government hospitals and 10 fully fledged government schools every 10 years being built. But all our LHDN money go to the failing Proton. Every year government gives hundreds of million to Proton as form of grants. Every other year, Proton ask RM billions in help. Recently, even under private hands also (DRB) Proton asked the government to give them free few RM billions from LHDN.

Proton and Perodua also cost us hundreds of billions in ringgit in investments from car companies who moved to Thailand and Indonesia. Car companies got fed up with Malaysia’s MITI for protecting Proton and Perodua and telling other companies what to price their cars. They got sick and tired of the AP system and how genuine brands cannot get enough APs to import their cars in (like Mercedes, BMW and Honda).

They thought that if they set up their brands and plants in Malaysia, they knew they had to give 30% of their hard earned company free away as well as being told by MITI what to price their cars. They all moved their operations to Thailand making it the AutoCity of the world.

Recently GM announced that they rolled out already 1 million cars from Thailand. Imagine if GM was in Malaysia and we taxed GM RM10,000 per car. Calculate that with 1 million cars. Just from GM alone, we lost Billions in USD. Imagine what will the amount be from other car companies if they had set up in Malaysia?

Because of Proton and Perodua, we lost hundreds of billion of ringgit in investment and trillions of ringgit from jobs lost. If Malaysia was the autocity of Asia, hundreds of thousands of jobs would have been created for Malaysians. We lost all that. Trillions of Ringgit and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Now, Thailand is benefiting from this trillions lost.

Car companies are flocking to invest hundreds of billions in Thailand despite Thailand being an unstable government, unstable economy and full of bomb blastings and terror.

Yet, global car companies still prefer Thailand. You still happy with Perodua? This is another rape like how Proton raped us for 30 years with low quality engines and parts. If Proton was not in Malaysia in the first place, you will have a few hundred thousand ringgit extra in your pocket!

And this is by far one of the most childish issue I’ve seen here.
In my opinion, Proton should not go into A-segment market at the first place, should collaborate with Suzuki on platform sharing instead. Maybe Vitara platform to be Proton’s first SUV? Or joint-venture producing small, nimble and affordable sports coupe.
But even if Proton really want to go into A-segment, so what. Malaysians should stop being in ‘comfort zone’ already, have a ‘healthy’ competition please.

lol. Tapau 2.0 civic. U delusional? This is what poor people keep telling themselves. In the heart they want a civic but since can’t afford, they buy a campro cfe car and keep posting this crap o all comments to lie to themselves and convince other people to buy their lies.
Btw…Iriz vs Myvi. You really want to compare these two cars?
At the end of the day, sales speaks louder than any specs. Iriz+savy+ all those crappy little protons can reach myvi sales volume?

Comparing a turbo engine with NA of course turbo will win la. Instead you should compare CFE with other turbo engines. Turbo vs Turbo and NA vs NA. No need give reasons that cfe only use soft turbo as it is still considered a turbo.
Other cars with 1.4-1.6L turbo engines all have higher hp and torque of 240-280nm and not to mention better fuel efficiency. Wait another 1-2 years and Jap cars start to go the turbo route then it would be a fair comparison of turbo with turbo.

Fight what lar? P1 not paying attention on their car quality, instead dreaming to sell better than Perodua. End up begging the most money from government. Typical Proton Sendiri Cakap Sendiri Syok but NOTHING DONE lifestyle.

Perodua is just a puppet of Toyota and Daihatsu. Even the upcoming Perodua sedan will not be a fully in-house product. As far as I’m concerned, only Proton has the right to claim ‘national car’ status because they design and manufacture almost everything themselves, with only transmissions and safety equipment being sourced from abroad. Yes, Proton has a few rebadged models like the Inspira and Perdana, but these are just 2 products out of the current 9 models that are not Proton-engineered. All of Perodua’s current models are Toyota/Daihatsu-designed, with only exterior panels, lights and interior fittings designed by Perodua. Note that the above aspects are relatively simple to engineer when compared to the more complex parts like the engine, transmission, chassis, frame, safety elements, handling etc.. In Perodua’s case, all the ‘difficult’ parts are engineered by their Japanese parents companies. In Proton’s case, it’s all done in-house with help from sister company Lotus Cars. Much of Perodua’s profits go back to Japan in one way or another, but almost all of Proton’s profits remain in our Malaysian economy. Perodua pays royalties to Toyota and Daihatsu for the use for their platforms and engines, Proton only does so for their Inspira and Perdana. That’s why the Iriz packs more features than the equivalent Myvi facelift and yet costs more or less the same, because Proton saves on royalty and licensing costs.

Back to the point; Perodua and Proton SHOULD fight because it leads to competition. And competition is always good because it brings out the best in everyone. Monopolising the market with Perodua focusing on small, cheap cars and Proton focusing on larger, more expensive cars will only lead to complacency in the long run.

The fact that the foreign companies have recently taken the upper hand in terms of market share is fated and unavoidable. As Malaysians have become wealthier and more affluent, sales of foreign cars will continue to climb. The fact of the matter is that Proton and Perodua simply do NOT have a single model to challenge the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi etc., or even a D-Segment Camry/ Accord/ Teana rival. Malaysian-badged cars are all from the C-Segment and below only. In some sense, Perodua’s CEO is right in saying that Proton should not fight with Perodua and instead focus on moving upmarket into the D-segment territory and also SUVs. However, this will only kill Proton faster because the cost to engineer larger and more luxurious cars are greater, and few Malaysians are willing to buy a Proton which costs more than RM70k, let alone RM100k and above. Thus, the Return on Investment for expensive Proton cars are FAR lower than their affordable models. The sad truth for both Proton and Perodua is that they’re only surviving because of their low-pricing thanks to the NAP and little else. If Malaysians could afford a foreign-badged car above RM100k, chances are most will max out their bank credit with 9-year loans to afford their dream Vios, City or Accord instead of being sensible and patriotic by buying an affordable Proton Prevé or even an economical Axia. The savings could be spent on health, education and property, instead of cars which ultimately lose most of their value after 3 or 4 years (unlike a house which appreciates in value, or health plans which increase your quality of living and education which will propel your career).

To me, I don’t mind that Perodua does not engineer their products in-house, that’s the nature of their business and it has served them well. However, putting Perodua on the same level as Proton is absurd. This is not about ego, it’s all simple facts; Proton makes their own cars, Perodua does not. Until Perodua gets on Proton’s level by building their own platforms, engines etc., they can never claim to be a national car company.

one openly admits it rebadges cars and is proud of it, the other 1 keeps sucking into the rakyat’s pockets by telling its’ developing its own cars but still has to resort to rebadging when their cars fail miserably.

Can any lawyer tell me whether the ceo has just made a statement in breach of the anti-competiton act? He seemed to imply openly that Proton and Perodua should “collude” and go into some arrangement that does not promote healthy competition in the market, that will ultimately benefit the consumer.

Nobody said anything about fighting… Its competition… Simple english…. Its the reason why u cant sell in any meaningful numbers exportwise…. In our land, well, the msia consumers arent exactly forcing u to make a proper product…its a diff ball game… P1 now can make a car n sell it as a japanese origin… P2’s very own game… GAME ON!

It is a good news for consumers to have competitions. USA is one place where competition is liberally practiced and the result is great pricing for consumers.
Seems like bad news for Proton and Perodua at first. BUT… If they survive this wave of foreign automaker attacks, they will end up becoming stronger. Better managements, better product, better reputation. So it is good for them as well.

MAI will be proven wrong. Will stronger choices and competitive pricing from foreign makes, especially increasing amount of Chinese vehicles like the Haval M4, P2 and P1’s lion share of possession will definitely be diluted further. No doubt.

I hope proton will rebadge more brand from japs..so can at least abolish some RV rage…I hope there will more new malaysian automaker emerge (Protiga Proemapat prolima) and rebadge rebadge rebadge including BMW and mercedes so I can buy those car with heist price !

it’s good actually when they re in the middle of fierce competition..not so called challenging each other..P1 surely need A segment platform as that is the only one they’re missing…suzuki slowly but steadily keep knocking our local market, thanks to swift and alto. Surely this agreement will be win win deal, as Suzuki will use proton’s world class facilities and in return Proton will get the engine, tooling and engineering knowledge. Guys open up ur mind, see what Mazda and Toyota doing, also what BMW and Audi

P2 what have you to worry? Yr service is much better than P1. Your Axia is much roomier than Suzuki. P1 & P2 must learn from China how they compete with foreign brands without price protection & among other 20+ local China brands with similar pricing. Everybody have sales growth & buyers benefit from this competition. Time to grow up because price protection did not prevent both of you from slipping in market share against foreign brands.

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